The noted SF author John Scalzi has talked
about the “flying snowman” on his blog.
This is based on his wife’s viewing of the classic cartoon “Frosty The
Snowman.” When our titular snowman
suddenly discovers he can fly, well, that kicked the good Mrs. Scalzi right out
of the story. Unfortunately for Lance
Erlick, author of The Rebel Within,
my flying snowman came very early in his book.

The book is the story of Annabelle Scott,
the adopted daughter of a state senator in Tenn-Tucky, a state formed after the
new Federal Union decides to do away with all males. Annabelle or Belle for short is slated for
the Security Services, the various units that enforce the no-boys-allowed
policy. All of this is fine, as far as
it goes. Then Belle goes off to boot
camp to become a mech-cop, the most elite police / military unit in Federal
service. And, after the first day of
training, Belle goes home for the weekend!

I’m sorry, but you simply do not, cannot, run a boot camp by letting your
trainees go home every night! It is
critical to shaping the mind of the recruit that they not go home. They need to
eat, drink, sleep and breathe whatever training you’re attempting to
indoctrinate them with. They most
especially do not have side jobs as
police interns, nor do they have time to appear before the local zoning board
and apply for a permit to open a restaurant.
(Yes, all of the above actually happens in The Rebel Within.)

So, my snowman got up, flew around, and
had a wild fling with a butterfly. Then,
boot camp consisted almost entirely of having these sixteen-year-olds engage in
gladiatorial combat with each other. What’s
entirely missing from Erlick’s boot camp is any training in basic combat
techniques. The “training” seems to
consist entirely of throwing kids in a ring and letting them figure it
out. No, that didn’t work for me. I encourage anybody interested in why boot
camp is hard to visit this post, and most especially watch the linked video “hidden
values of hard.”

So, I’m afraid I was unimpressed with The Rebel Within. We’ve had a string of less-than-favorable
reviews here at POD People. Hopefully
that string will be broken soon.

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